Human Resource Blog

Hi Mark,

You can tell the employee that it is not legal. The U.S. Department of Labor states that any hours over 40 must be paid in overtime. If your business is audited you can be in trouble for paying under the table and not paying overtime.

You can let him know you will give him additional hours and the hours will be paid at time and one half. There are lots of great people out there looking for full time employment.

With under 50 employees FMLA does not apply and with under 15 employees, The Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not apply. So in reality you are safe on both accounts.

My suggestion is that you speak to the employee about missed time. Sometimes during the first trimester morning sickness and extreme tiredness does occur. You may want to work out a different work schedule with her.

But remember that if her performance falters she can be terminated for performance issues, not because she is pregnant.  A discussion is warranted with her.

Under the old companies vacation policy a rule or procedure would have to had to be in place requiring the payout of vacation time if the company was sold.

However, if the old company was sold under an LLC or corporation and the new owners bought the LLC or corporation then vacation should have been carried over. That is because your employer did not change, just the owners.

In addition, if ether the business was not a corporation or LLC, but was a sole proprietorship or partnership and the new company simply bought the assets of the old business, then the new owners are not obligated to honor your vacation.

If you have any concerns, your should speak to the new owners regarding vacation time.

You can either keep the original hire date, which I would suggest you do, or you can start with the new hire date of January. By keeping the original hire date employees will be able to keep service dates for benefits etc. and it is an easy tracking method. If you start with a hire date of January 2013, you can also bridge service which can be difficult to track.

The paperwork that you are required to have on file are the I9 forms and W4 forms.  You do not need to complete new forms since the other than ownership everything is the same. You should do a review to make sure everything is in order.

As far as applications, there would be no need to complete new applications forms unless the new owner is requiring then.